Gardening.

The view over the bay this morning was of grey skies with rain around. At least the overnight rain had saved me the job of watering the new plants in the rockery. I felt sorry for people who had come down for a break over the long weekend. However it did get warmer and sunnier later.

I've spent my day working in the back garden. I've cleared and (hand) forked the three vegetable beds. Having had enough of bringing pots in and out every day the three spaghetti squash plants got planted out and so too have the bush tomato plants though they have the protection of a cloche. Then I pulled up all the random seedlings in the herb garden. It must be the perfect growing medium as it was full of seedlings of all sorts. Apart from the Welsh poppy seedlings which are simply everywhere (a shame they can't be eaten or sold as I'd be in the money then) there were many fennel, lemon balm, lovage and aquilegia seedlings. I've transferred a fair number down to the 'oddments' bed in the front garden but the rest have just gone in the pile.

I wonder what this clematis flower will be like? Instead of the usual pairs of leaves this stem has 6 leaves and the flower bud also looks as if it is going to be a double or even triple. Looking at my stack of labels I think it might be The Duchess of Edinburgh which is a double white with large buds.

Now for a selection of my wildlife photos from yesterday. Not that I was very succesful. I'd hear a bird singing somewhere above me and then spend five minutes failing to spot the bird. Or else I'd see a bird, aim and focus only to find it had flown away.

I took this photo of a pied flycatcher before I saw the sign on the hide door.

Walking in the bluebell wood I came to an open but sheltered clearing where the heat hit me like an open oven door. Wow I thought, and then I began to see butterflies all over the place. But even though they are easy to spot they are really hard to photograph as they flutter and swoop randomly around. There was a peacock butterfly that was definitely patrolling up and down 10ft of the path occasionally sitting on the warm soil for just a micro second. But it did not like the brimstone butterflies (centre of the photo below). It would repeatedly fly up and swoop at the male brimstone which is a large bright yellow butterfly. 

As this brimstone feeds from a bluebell its distinctive pointed wing shape can be seen.

Both the robin and the red damselfly are common garden visitors but I photographed anything that stayed still long enough.

Something that didn't stay still for long was this peacock butterfly whose ragged wings spoke of narrow escapes from butterfly eating birds.

I had to use my bird guide to identify this sedge warbler as there are 21 species of warbler listed in my book of British birds. It's another west african migrant and can be recognised by its flat head and the white stripe over its eye.

I took this photo just after I had passed a couple, with telephoto lenses who said they were photographing redstarts, rarer migrants but I wonder if they were looking at this common chaffinch. They look very similar but redstarts do not have white markings on the wings. 

The board at the visitors centre had over 30 species of bird listed as having been recently seen on the reserve. I don't think proper birders would be overly impressed with my observations but I enjoyed myself spending time in nature.